Verdi - Attila (Milan, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Attila

Teatro alla Scala, Milan - 2018

Riccardo Chailly, Davide Livermore, Ildar Abdrazakov, Saioa Hernández, Fabio Sartori, Simone Piazzola, Gianluca Buratto, Francesco Pittari

ARTE Concert - 7 December 2018

Attila is a dog of an opera. You can make excuses for it being an early Verdi work, full of youthful passion and fury, you can make claims for it being an expression in defence of national unity and liberty from foreign oppression, and you can even point to it anticipating Verdi's great mid period of Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata, but at best Attila is workmanlike and at worst ridiculously old-fashioned. Other than the fact that it was first performed at La Scala in 1846, I can see no reason why the Milan house would choose Attila to showcase their traditional December season opening extravaganza.

Well, there's one valid way - maybe two - of making it work and possibly have something worthwhile to put in front of a modern audience. As was proved earlier this summer with Alzira at the Buxton Festival, even the crudest Verdi operas can be rehabilitated when they have truly great singers capable of singing the principal roles, particularly the extraordinarily challenging writing for the lead soprano role. In practice this is rare and there are few singers of that calibre willing to push their voices to such extremes for the sake of a hokey melodrama.

Which brings up the other challenge of making early Verdi palatable for a modern audience; finding a way of updating the production to make it relevant and not look like - as is the case with Attila - an am-dram Gothic melodrama in period costumes. Unfortunately, early Verdi rarely supports any effort to bring nuance or indeed substance to the works.

As far as the Teatro alla Scala di Milano is concerned however, they wouldn't dare present such a work without the necessary singing forces on such a prestigious opening night, even though the brave lead soprano Saioa Hernández taking on the role of Odabella is a complete unknown to me at least. On the directorial side there's a little more room to risk the disapproval of a thankfully decreasing but still vociferous minority of boorish traditionalists at the opera house, and Davide Livermore - who has produced some imaginative and thrilling work at the Rossini Opera Festival to showcase the underappreciated value of Verdi's predecessor - is a good choice that offers some hope for Attila not being a complete disaster.

The question remains whether Verdi's Attila can sustain any deeper human sentiments in this context. Based on Livermore's record it's not likely that he will attempt the impossible, but you can expect him to at least find a way of illuminating Verdi as an operatic spectacle. And indeed it soon becomes obvious that Livermore has dispensed with the heavy fleeces, fur-hats with horns and the swords and shields for a more recognisable and relatable vision of war. The director goes for spectacle that includes jeeps, motorbikes and helicopters (ok, not the last one, but he would if he could) but also finds a good balance of showing us familiar modern imagery of the nature of war atrocities without going too far down the Damiano Michieletto Guillaume Tell route of explicit realism.

Plumes of grey smoke spiral into dark murderous skies and ruined buildings set the scene as Attila's Huns overrun the Italian capital during the Prologue, gunning down ordinary men, women and children in summary executions. So when Odabella launches into a defiant condemnation of Attila's brutality against the Italian people, against Italian women ("Ma noi, donna italiche... sempra vedrai pugnar"), you need to see why she is sufficiently roused, why she might be capable of carrying out her threats, and why the Hun leader might be impressed enough to spare her a similar execution. You need to hear it too, and when Saioa Hernández launches into this opening scene you're left in little doubt of how formidable this woman can be, particularly when she is facing an Attila as deeply sonorous as Ildar Abdrazakov.

There's nothing clever or revisionist or high concept in that, it just matches and brings into realisation the full force of Verdi's intentions in dramatic and scenic terms, playing up the Gothic, which is the best you can do. Addressed to an Italian audience, with its nationalistic flag-waving in the face of foreign invasion ("la tua patria in cenere" - your country in ashes) it could be seen as risky in these times of far-right insurgence (particularly in Italy), but Livermore's vision (perhaps more than Verdi's vision of noble sacrifice) shows what war means to the ordinary people caught up in it in terms that we are rather more familiar with today.

There are plenty of little touches that keep the drama grounded in this way, with cinematic back projections showing the death of Odabella's father that chrysalises her implacable quest for vengeance against the Huns. There is also plenty of spectacle and fireworks elsewhere in the impressive set designs and some good ideas that strive to get into the nature of Attila and his worldview, notably in the visualisation of Attila's dream turning to reality in Act I, and in Act II's party scene that has some sinister and decadent 'The Nightporter'-like Nazi imagery. Most of this works as well as can be expected for an opera like Attila.

The singing however is just superb. You couldn't ask for better than Ildar Abdrazakov and Saioa Hernández for total assumption of the roles of Attila and Odabella. Hernández is spectacularly good, nailing an extremely difficult role. There's still some standing, gesturing and striking of operatic poses, but the figures they play do often seem possessed and they try at least to make the Verdi-istic feel a little more naturalistic, or at least in the spirit of the work. The other performances are also outstanding; Fabio Sartori is a clarion-voiced classic Verdi tenor perfect for Foresto, with Simone Piazzola's Ezio and Francesco Pittari's Uldino also impressing.

Musically it's another matter, or another challenge if you like. In an interval interview Riccardo Chailly makes the case for Attila richly showcasing three musical colours for military scenes, for sacred scenes and for the supernatural, which sounds like typical Verdi by numbers to me that is done much better elsewhere. If it's insipid one moment and heavy-handed the next, Chailly at least tries hard to brings a little more uniformity and lyricism to the musical arrangements. It doesn't change my opinion that Attila is weak and démodé, but if anyone can make a case for it, they'd be hard pushed to improve on just about any aspect of this impressive La Scala production. A surprising success.

Links: ARTE Concert, Teatro alla Scala

Verdi - Attila

Giuseppe Verdi - Attila

Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège, 2013

Renato Palumbo, Ruggero Raimondi, Michele Pertusi, Makvala Aspanidze, Giovanni Meoni, Giuseppe Gipali, Papuna Tchuradze, Pierre Gathier

France TV Culturebox, Internet Steaming, 24 September 2013

In the bicentennial year that saw new productions of many rarely performed early Verdi operas, the unlikely popular success of Attila is perhaps the most surprising, if not downright baffling. There are many other neglected Verdi operas - I Due Foscari, I Masnadieri, Joan of Arc and Stiffelio, for example - that are surely more deserving of exploration and re-examination than Attila. Popularity is no sure indicator of quality but it can't be ignored either, and there's no question that Attila is a quintessential and entertaining Verdi work. It is filled with nationalistic sentiments, tragic romantic situations and family complications which have that recognisable melodic and dramatic Verdian touch, even if none of the melodies can compare to Verdi's best and the drama here is fairly static.

Musically, Attila is also fairly conventional, Verdi matching the situation with appropriate music that isn't terribly imaginative, but more often resorts to basic see-sawing, plucking and shimmering strings to accompany situations of stormy tension. The break-down into static numbers doesn't allow for a great deal of fluidity either, containing the requisite religious scene (Bishop Leone), that is preceded by a ghost scene (maidens in white appearing in a dream to Attila), and patriotic hymns ('Cara patria' - 'Dear homeland'). The problem with Attila however is not so much that it's a number opera, since Verdi can do wonders with such material (Macbeth, Joan of Arc), as much as the fact that Temistocle Solera's libretto provides little room for the composer to explore any deeper subtext to the situation or any personality in the characters.

The problem is highlighted in Act 1 after the lengthy prologue. Odabella sings a lament for her missing father and Foresto who she believes is dead ('Oh! Nel fuggente nuvolo'), but as lovely as it is, it's rendered immediately pointless when Foresto turns up at the end of the number not dead after all, and the sentiments evaporate as the chugging strings work up the tension yet again for their charged encounter. Like everything else in the opera, that's all pitched at a level of near hysterical declamation. Here Odabella furiously challenges his faithfulness, while Foresto just as furiously denies it. "Strike me with your sword, but not your words", Odabella declaims, and Verdi's music is that sword, wielded as defiantly as the fervent expressions of determined ambition to destroy and defeat Attila and his forces elsewhere. It's all rather tiresome, I find.

The lack of any real dynamic or more subtle exploration of character and situation means that there's not a great deal a director can do with it either. Conducting the orchestra of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Renato Palumbo doesn't find any unexpected depths or lyricism in Attila, but there's no doubt it's a very good performance of a mediocre opera. The production too, directed by Ruggero Raimondi - a man familiar with the role of Attila as a singer - is as well-staged as any of the fine productions at the very underrated Liège company, but there's similarly not much a director can do with this material. Raimondi's production designs are traditional, well-designed (the arrival of Leone descending from above is most impressive) and beautifully lit, with backdrops of thunder clouds and imposing columns closing down space, but you could just as easily use the same set for Ernani or Oberto.  

The main roles in Attila are challenging then not only from a singing viewpoint, but they require some personality and creative acting ability if the opera is not to be just static declamation. All of the performers here do as well as could be expected, the tenor and soprano roles of Foresto and Odabella in particular being well filled by Giuseppe Gipali and Makvala Aspanidze. Aspanidze is a high soprano, which can make Odabella's fervour a little bit shrill at length and the Georgian's Italian enunciation is also heavily accented, but she tackles the demands of the role valiantly and has no problem reaching its high notes. Much of what is enjoyable and memorable about Verdi's writing for this work comes from the dramatic bass/baritone stand-offs between Attila and the Roman commander Ezio, and those are also capably met by Michele Pertusi and Giovanni Meoni.

The Opéra Royal de Wallonie's 2013 production of Verdi's Attila can be viewed via internet streaming from France Television's Culturebox website.  Subtitles are in French only.

Verdi - Attila

Giuseppe Verdi - Attila

Teatro Verdi di Busseto, 2010

Andrea Battistoni, Pier Francesco Maestrini, Giovanni Battista Parodi, Sebastian Catana, Susanna Branchini, Roberto de Biasio, Christiano Cremonini, Zyian Atfeh

C-Major - Blu-ray

By the time he came to write Attila for La Fenice in Venice in 1846, Verdi had firmly established, consolidated and refined a style and a structure that would be recognisable in nearly all his subsequent works.  Attila is made up of a number of stock situations involving war, vengeanace, romance and betrayal and Verdi packs it with big dramatic numbers and choruses that match the intensity of the emotions.  There's nothing inspired here however, nothing that provides any great insights or revelations into the characters or human behaviour.  Even worse, there are no great memorable arias or musical numbers.

Dramatically however there's never a dull moment in Attila.  Much of the reason for that is down to Verdi's sense of arrangement and his scoring for situation.  You can see how all the elements that are to define the drama and the conflict are laid out forcefully, strongly and concisely in the opening scene.  Here you have all the euphoria of the Huns' victory in the capture and plunder of Aquilera mixed in with the shame of defeated.  In Attila's sense of invulnerability and the proud defiance of Odabella, the daughter of the defeated king, you have the sowing of the seeds of a deeply personal revenge that is only heightened by Odabella's appearance of compliance and subservience.  It may be feigned, but her lover Foresto doesn't know that, and just to add further emotional turmoil to the situation, he accuses her of unfaithfulness to him, her father and her country.

And there you have the typical Verdi dramatic situation that stirs the emotions like nothing else, particularly when the composer directs it towards the people of an Italian nation seeking its own independence.  The situation between the Roman general Ezio and Attila emphasises the position further.  Ezio seeks agreement that Attila will venture no further into Italy, but buoyed by success Attila refuses.  "In vain!  Who now can restrain the onslaught of the consuming wave?", as the colourful libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and Temistocle Solera puts it, and the intensity of the sentiments in this powerful stand-off situation between two formidable warriors who are respectful of the position of each other is matched by the grave intonations of Verdi's scoring for the bass/bass-baritone roles that play those parts.

The qualities of Verdi's dramatic writing are all there then and the cast for this 2010 production of Attila at the Teatro Verdi di Busseto are more than capable of bringing them out.  The theatre - seen previously in the 'Tutto Verdi' release of Oberto - has a tiny stage that you'd scarcely think capable of putting on a work as big and ambitious as this.  The use of 3D-CG projections in Pier Francesco Maestrini's direction might not be the ideal solution, but it's a reasonable means of covering the epic settings of battlefields, ships, stormy seas, Roman camps and forest glades.  It's a little cheesy, but probably no more so than painted backdrops, which would be the only other feasible option for a stage this size.  (In the case of Oberto, Pier' Alli went mainly for minimal props and plain dark backgrounds).

There's still not much room for the singers to do anything more than stand and belt out Verdi's big numbers, but the costumes, the stage directions and the performances all make reasonably good use of the limited resources.  Occasionally, for no other reason than having no room to do anything else, the singers run off the stage and back on again to finish their number.  The singing performances are mostly fine.  If they lack some precision in places the voices are at least all more than big enough for the work and the size of the theatre.

Giovanni Battista Parodi is a fine Attila, and if he doesn't particularly come to life, that's as much to do with Verdi's writing.  Robert de Biasio has a classic Italian tenor voice for Foresto.  He's not always on the note, but in the context of the live performance, it's fine and he makes a good overall impression.  Susanna Branchini's technique could do with some refinement and doesn't have the smoothest legato, but she also gives Odabella all the force and character required.  No problems however with Sebastian Catana, who makes a fine Ezio, but this is perhaps the only convincing character in the drama.

The Blu-ray here is part of C-Major's 'Tutto Verdi' collection.  The quality of transfer is reasonably good.  There's a little bit of flicker in the image but it's generally stable and detailed.  The audio doesn't quite have the pristine clarity we expect from High Definition and there's very little surround presence on the DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mix, but it's fine and it gets across the forceful delivery of the opera as conducted by Andrea Battistoni.  The BD is all-region, BD25, with subtitles in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Japanese subtitles.